Karl Hill

Karl Hill (9 May 1831 – 12 January 1893) was a German baritone opera singer.

Life

Hill was born in Idstein, but he lived and worked for most of his life and died in Schwerin. He studied in Frankfurt, and made his debut in 1868 as Jacob in Méhul's Joseph. He sang as Alberich during the first performance of Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth in 1876. He also sang Klingsor in the first performance of Parsifal in 1882. He retired from opera in 1890 due to mental illness.

Roles

His Wagnerian roles included Alberich in Das Rheingold, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, The Dutchman in Der fliegende Holländer, and Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Non-Wagnerian roles included Count Almaviva on The Marriage of Figaro and Leporello in Don Giovanni.

Sources

• Forbes, Elizabeth (2008). "Hill, Karl" in Laura Macy (ed.), The Grove Book of Opera Singers, p. 223. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533765-5